Sudan Gold Coin

SGC is a unique combination of gold mining business and blockchain technology that creates a cryptocurrency supported by a golden standard.

How it works:

SGC’s aim is to establish a profitable gold mining business in Sudan and to create a coin backed by the gold produced. The company owns about 8017.8 km2 of promising land to perform their mining at.

SGC combines two companies – the governing one in UAE and the mining one in Sudan. They possess all the necessary documents to begin the operation, geological exploration of the site, soil samples, scheme of gold mining process. The deals with the governmental entities are struck too. The only thing they need to start the operation is a successful ICO.

If the ICO reaches the hard cap of 16,5 mio USD the plant will be able to work at the highest speed, processing 1,500 tons of gold ore a day.

Tying the cost of the token to a definite amount of gold will reduce its volatility to the level of the gold market. This is way lower and more stable than the Bitcoin rollercoaster.

As each token represents a definite amount of gold that will increase every quarter and can be exchanged for gold certificates after a full year of operation, SGC can be used as money of the gold standard times. An elaborate set of rules ensures that SGC always stays linked to the amount of gold company states.

Another feature that SGC implements is the decentralized gold exchange that will allow to use SGC token as the main currency for purchasing gold of any mining company. It will reduce costs as it connects buyers and sellers directly, leaving banks and other middlemen behind. Anonymity is ensured by military-grade algorithms.

Innovation:

SGC is not the first gold-backed cryptocurrency. It only gets a medium score in this section for introducing a decentralized gold market.

Innovation score: Medium

Token value:

SGC token doesn’t act as a share and does not entitle token holders to a pat of company’s income. Its price, however, is supported by the amount of gold mined by the company.

At the beginning each token is tied with 0.05g of gold and can be legally exchanged for this amount of precious metal. Each day a plant is able to process 1,500 tons of ore, given the hard cap is met. The price of token will grow quarterly, as the amount of gold mined by the company goes up.

Half of the net income of the SG mining Co generated from gold mining will be used for buyback of SGC from tokens holders and creation of the decentralized gold exchange. A portion of Dubai SG mining Co is used every year to buy a certain number of tokens and burn them.

The estimates predict a price of $14.4 per token after eight quarters of operation at full capability.

Tokens can be exchanged for gold certificates according to the amount of tokens in one’s wallet after a year of mining.

Token value score: High

White paper:

SGC’s white paper is not at the level of detail it should be. Still, it is of a rather good quality. It talks briefly about business structure and ICO plan and related issues. The market analysis is quite brief too. A significant part of the paper is dedicated to technical aspects of gold mining and presenting a basic mining plan.

White paper score: Medium

Roadmap:

SGC has already held a Successful pre-ICO in the third quarter of 2017. The team will develop modular mining in Q2 2018 and will start producing gold in the third quarter. Gold exchange based on blockchain will start in Q4 2018.

Roadmap score: Medium

Business model:

The business model SGC takes is old but gold, no pun intended. In the world where gold means money, mining it is always a good idea.

The gold operation is controlled by Sudanese company for the sake of convenience. It is owned by Dubai company that operates the whole project. The team has a detailed mining plan and all geological data figured out.

However, these plans can be ruined or put behind schedule by external forces, as mining is no easy business.

Business model score: High

Team:

The project has a mixed Ukrainian and Sudanese team, the former being responsible for development and the latter for gold mining. Unfortunately, little is known about them, as neither the site nor the white paper present their bios.

The advisory board is a little bit more promising. The project’s advisors are experts in gold mining and trading projects, a marketing strategist, a blockchain engineer, and a chief information security officer among many others.

SGC could have gained the highest mark in this rating, if they would mention the team’s experience.

Team score: Medium

Competitors:

As our analysis of the market shows, there are many startups that offer gold-backed cryptocurrencies. These are Goldmint, OneGram, HelloGold, bitGold and DigixDAO just to name a few.

The oldest, DigixDAO shows a stable growth in price, and at the time of writing this article trades at $467.37 per token.

This means that SGC is up against a pretty big competition. But the market may not be full just yet and it shows growth, so it’s not all that bad for SGC.

Competitors score: Medium

Overall thoughts:

SGC operates on a great idea, even though it is not the first of a kind. There is still some place on the market to take, but it is not obvious that SGC will succeed, given that their team is not introduced properly and it is impossible to assess it as definitely positive.

Still, with the big and stable ROIs in this niche, investing in SGC might be a risk worth taking.